Chapter 14

My dear Natalie,

As promised, I tell the tale of a terrible Society. The only fact that can comfort us both is that by the time you read this, I’ll be on a ship back to see you.

I wasted no time in confronting my enemies. I was up at first light, pacing the flat. I nearly seized the hot water out of the maid’s hands. Bolstered by my favorite brew of Earl Grey, I waited until a reasonable hour before entering Knowles’s office.

“Tell me about ‘the Society,’ whatever you know.”

Knowles sighed. “I inquired after your estate to the family now living there. The merchant family appears quite separate from the affairs that displaced you. They paid a mad sum of money for the property, and I believe that was the Society’s sole intent: a fundraiser of sorts. The agent, by the family’s admission, was a bit odd, and they were uncomfortable about the run of bad luck that surrounded your family name. I’m sorry, Lord Denbury. I’m about to tell you things that will enrage you.”

He lifted the snifter of bourbon, but I took more tea instead. “Go on.”

“Your crest was removed everywhere from the estate, replaced with monograms. The family has no coat of arms with which to replace it. What I found in perusing the sale papers was the occasional seal.”

He pointed to the paper, to the “crest” of the Society.

“The exact agent brokering the sale was never referred to by name, only the Society, with this seal. I had to appear entirely casual and not give a whiff of Scotland Yard, so that’s as far as I could take things. I wonder if you shouldn’t pay a visit to the one address you see there, Earl’s Court.”

I knew I would have to go as the demon, of course. Would they sense that some distant arm across the Atlantic had been severed? As long as I didn’t look them directly in the eye, they couldn’t see any difference, so long as I was a good actor…But would they sense it?

But not only demons were at work. The Society would have to be made mostly of mere mortals, so how could they know? Mrs. Northe promised that the demise of the painting would not be broadcast even to those who worked in the Metropolitan Museum. It was our secret victory. And couldn’t I explain any inconsistencies away, at least enough to glean some insight?

I could’ve used your presence to bolster me as you used to do in the painting, brightening my day and restoring my sanity. I wasn’t eager to take on that beast’s manner, but I couldn’t say no.

“The play’s the thing,” I muttered, and we were off. Much as Hamlet set a trap with his little play to draw out Claudius, I hoped to do the same with mortals who served demons. “Let’s go. I don’t think the demon is the sort to leave a calling card. If no one is home, I’ll leave a message with whatever staff I might find.”

If I didn’t try immediately, I’d lose momentum, nerve, and anger. Anger at all that had been taken from me. I could care less about the property; it was my loved ones I missed. Anger would keep me sharp and smart.

I’m not sure what I expected, but the bustling heart of a new Earl’s Court development was not the outpost of the insidious that I had anticipated. Perhaps it was better to hide nefarious activities here rather than in a darkened mansion on a howling moorland. Instead, evil had offices. A corporation. I got a chill up my spine walking up the stoop.

As I rang for the uppermost floor, a beady-eyed man in a footman’s uniform opened the door. He looked me up and down, scowling.

“Society business,” I said casually. Still scowling, he pointed up a sweeping staircase. I suppose that was a welcome in. He strode on ahead of me, boots loud on the wooden stairs. The dark, expensive, and elaborately carved wood everywhere made the place look like a rococo cave.

“Majesty’s busy, though. You know, all his transactions,” the doorman said in a rough cockney voice that sounded like his throat had been cut and sewn back together. “I’ll have to announce you. And you are?”

“Denbury,” I said. A dim flicker of recognition passed over the man’s face. He nodded and knocked on an unmarked door with a particular rap—four knocks, a pause, and then one more. Soon the door swung open as if on its own and the doorman slipped in, closing it in my face.

The Society seemed to exclusively maintain the top floor of this fine, three-story edifice. The windows bore crests and proud British symbols in stained glass, and I noticed that Society members would be able to see everything around and below them. I guess they liked looking down on things.

The door swung open again, and with a grunt from the doorman, I was motioned into a dim flat with high ceilings and exquisite furnishings fit for a king. Perhaps “Majesty” was one himself from some time or another. Everything smelled musty and old, even though the building was of the very finest new row construction.

Across the vast room, drapery cascaded down from the ceiling, making a sort of ceremonial corner steeped in shadow, and from this shadow came a voice—thin, reedy, and disapproving: “Why are you back? You were to remain in New York as we prepare the colonial offices!”

“Your Majesty.” I genuflected. “My apologies. Crenfall went batty. They locked him up for my deeds, which is just as well. I must let the rabble in the press die down.”

“Your deeds?”

Did this man not know? Wasn’t the demon who’d overtaken my identity the type to have bragged about his bloody conquests? I decided to chuckle and give one of those looks that had made us both shudder when we’d seen the demon use it. I edged half into one of the shadows.

“I got a little…carried away with local women, you know. But I don’t want it to detract from our greater goals. So I’m on holiday.”

“Ah, yes. Well…you are a creature of your own nature. And we did tell you to seek to increase your powers by any means necessary. I expect a full report. We need to learn from your rituals and institutionalize them among the Majesties, the three of us.”

I waved a noncommittal hand. “If your kind can understand them…”

“We are disciples of your rituals,” the Majesty said, wounded the demon should think otherwise.

The last thing on Earth I wanted to do was recount what had been done in my visage. I thought of the carving of flesh, of all the terrible things we had seen, and I held back a shudder.

It was the greatest injustice that this person, this cretin, was talking to me as if dipping ink in the devil’s well were a simple business transaction. As if no one had died torturously.

But I recognized the nonchalance of the upper classes when it came to the lives of those below them: toys, labor, annoyances, servants. I’d seen that mentality break hearts and create conditions tantamount to murder. My mother had tried to offset this mentality, and she’d done a damn good job of it. A pang of sentiment hit me hard. I hadn’t had time to grieve her.

But this was not the time. I had a part to play, and I had to respond. I tried to imitate the mannerisms the demon had taken on. It was the strangest thing to imitate someone who had done an affected, false imitation of me. But I could never forget how that demon took and mocked me. I waved my hand in the air, pacing in and out of the dramatic shadows of the room as they fell strangely across gaudy Louis XIV-style furniture.

“I’ll share with you what of my ways may translate to you mortals, but remember I am beyond you, the laws of my existence and yours are different—”

“Yes, yes,” my host interrupted defensively, “you’re a demon from the shadow-lands between life and death, a once-human soul that, so darkened in its earthly rounds, can no longer claim mortal derivation. You know, it’s tedious, really. You may have come to Monsignor in his dream, but do not think for a moment that we collectively bow to you. We are not your tools. You are ours.”

I folded my arms. “I know you bow to no one but yourselves,” I retorted, my tone just as biting as his. “It’s what attracted me to Monsignor in the first place. But I am here only upon my whim and my pleasure.”

A wave of distrust and fear rippled off this “Majesty,” making the air sour. I saw a faint shimmer of red and gold light flicker over him, the indicators that had illuminated the demon. My enemy laid bare, this Majesty might make good on his threats, but he was not at ease with the demon. I hoped I could use that to advantage.

“Of course,” the Majesty relented quietly. “But I beg you to remember that you exist for one purpose: to increase the shadows that claimed you. The Master’s Society works toward a common goal: growing shadows across the most powerful lands so that we may restore the civilized world to the proper heights of aristocratic rule. Once that is attained, you have free rein over the gutter and can slake your every thirst.”

“I assume the Denbury estate is in good hands? Not to question your judgment, but I really wouldn’t have put Crenfall in charge of anything. He’s a disaster.”

“He had his uses. He yearned to serve, in hopes we would give him a place in our kingdom, but cracked under the strain. The estate was sold handsomely to a merchant family.” He said the words “merchant family” with such disdain you’d think they were curse words. “Once the morbid curiosity surrounding the Denbury deaths settles down, we’ll relocate English operations there, and the rest will move to our new New York branch.”

Before I could inquire further about that location, the Majesty continued. “How that young Denbury was talked about,” he said with a sneer. “You’d think a finer youth had never been born. How besotted society ladies were by his piercing looks and disinterest in anything but his noble causes. The whole family. Gone. So tragic.” He hissed. “Serves them right. Ungrateful wretches. That pretty little visage of yours should have been mine.” I didn’t have any idea what he meant, but I desperately wanted to throttle him.

“But that’s all ancient history. Locals have been happy to gossip about the new estate tenants. And they’ll be just as happy to gossip when the Denbury grounds are seized again at the proper time. But by then so much will be happening that no one will be able to keep up with one family’s intrigue…”

I let this sink in, breathing deeply to keep my calm. “I like being popular and this body has its charms, but anonymity has its advantages.”

“That’s why we had to ship you off to New York, young man. That body of yours was just too beloved here. It would attract too much attention, whereas in New York, Lord Denbury serves as a pretty face with clear breeding and an accent to make all those aspirational American girls his playthings.”

You can imagine how difficult this was to listen to without betraying my feelings. But you know what that’s like, Natalie, having had your various parts to play in my drama. Still, it’s a wonder I didn’t draw my pistol and shoot the man dead right there. But then I’d have learned nothing. This was more useful and revelatory than I’d imagined. Justice in due time.

“Truly, though, how long do you plan to keep that body?” the Majesty scoffed.

“I rather like this one. Don’t you go rushing me.”

“You’re missing your ring.”

I glanced down at my hands. I tried to recall: had this body worn a ring? Did the demon now transferred and trapped in the painting wear it? Did it have some magical property?

“Came off amid one of my…tumbles,” I explained. “I regret that. Lovely piece. But I did get rather carried away with them. My conquests.”

His body partly in the light, I could see him shiver in anticipation. “Oh, you must share your ritual secrets, if not with the others, than with me, I beg you. Have you taken the time to visit your grave?” he asked cheerfully.

I shook my head. “Any reason why I should have?” I recovered from this question. Maybe there was a rite or ritual the Majesty had been expecting graveside. “I mean, the man had his uses. Hell of a painter. But did it all go to plan, without trouble?”

“My, yes. A decomposed body with the right details does the trick, just as you suggested. And the police, with all their useless municipalities…” He laughed. “I daresay a man could run about ripping people apart, night after night, and they’d not be able to catch him. It makes me want to try, just to see how much one could get away with.”

“Isn’t that what drew you into this?” I posited, pressing my luck and trying to get my mind around these people. “Isn’t that why you called upon the likes of me? Isn’t it one of the occupations of the leisure class? To see what you could get away with?”

“Oh, you mustn’t get caught up in our games and think it’s all about the experimentation. Our aim remains the grand restoration of power where mankind intended it.” He leaned back, and I could see a corner of his face in the light.

An unattractive face with a balding pate and pockmarked cheeks. He appeared dull and sallow, yet his eyes were dark and sharp, and clearly his tone was meant to reassert his authority. He continued with his sense of mission:

“During one of your…tumbles, don’t lose sight of the main goal of seizure. We want as many deeds and purse strings as possible. You may be called out from those shadow-lands as our colleague, but you are here under Society rule, and we mustn’t have chaos. Not yet. Chaos comes far later on our schedule.”

I bowed my head to him in acquiescence.

“And so,” the Majesty said proudly, “with the soul-rending we’ve managed on you and the good doctor in New York working on reanimation and another on pharmacology, we’ve the tools of our operation in the process of implementation. In order to overturn the world, we must have fear on our side. Well, and opiates for the fearless. But our creations will wield a staff of fear that will clear our way like Moses once parted water,” he said, chuckling.

Fear. Opiates. I thought of how I’d been kidnapped and tricked in an opium den. I kept my roiling anger well hid. A good doctor keeps his diagnosis veiled behind an impassive face. My visit had served as much of a purpose as it could.

“Back to New York, then, Majesty?”

“Back to New York with you. Check in on Dr. Preston. German Hospital, one of those benevolent places that treats whoever comes,” he grumbled with distaste. “I suppose he has to work somewhere. His trial should be operational soon. Tell me everything. Send a secure address to this one, and we’ll correspond from there. Remain clear of the telegraph wires; letters will do. Don’t let me lose track of you again in any of your little games. Don’t get attached to anyone or anything but the cause.”

“Give me tasks, and I will see to them,” I replied, “but give me leave and space. Do not have me followed or hovered over. Crenfall was miserable company, and I’ll not tolerate the like. If you don’t let me be a lone wolf, I will kill you in your sleep.” I used the quiet pitch the demon used. It worked. Fear flickered across the man’s ugly face.

“Agreed. Beyond your duties, your time is as you’d like it to be, provided you compromise no one but yourself. Enjoy the body provided you.”

“Oh, I shall. Good then.” And with that I bowed my head, going for the door. “Ta!”

A grunt of amusement was all the good-bye the Majesty gave.

I maintained a jaunty walk down the three floors and around the corner to where Knowles had shifted the carriage. I hopped in and nearly collapsed against the leather cushion, my knees suddenly weak. Sitting inside with a hat tipped low over his long face, Knowles gave me a moment to sit up and regain steady breathing before he asked, “Any luck?”

“Oh, indeed, Mr. Knowles. More than I bargained for.”

So there you have it, Natalie. I’m sent off again to New York.

I need a day to collect my resources. Only a fool would keep all his assets within his estate and obvious family holdings. So I send you this account and am off to collect some treasures and the bulk of my personal holdings.

Did I mention it’s strangely cold in London? Perhaps I still walk the valley of shadow. I’ll send word of my exact arrival time. Until then, dream well of me, and I promise to do the same.

Yours,

Jonathon

I shook so hard while reading the letter that my arms ached.

When he meets me in New York, will we have to look constantly over our shoulders, even though he demanded he not be trailed? I’d hoped that getting his affairs in order would mean we’d be free to exist as any normal, courting young couple might do, without fear of death, spells, or evil institutions hanging over them. But the moment I met Preston, I knew it wasn’t so simple. The Society was the spider, and its web was large.

As I looked into the vanity, my reflection back was deathly pale. This new part Jonathon had to play was yet one more obstacle between us, one more matter to be resolved before we could be together. “Don’t get attached to anything,” had been the warning. The demon had no sweetheart, no fiancée, no woman he courted.

He only had victims.